| Abstract: | The eclipse of the city view by the geometric plan around 1700 is a well‐documented phenomenon that traditionally has been explained by recourse to a meta‐historical narrative about the progressive triumph of science over art. In actuality, throughout the early modern period the modes of representation available to the cartographer ranged from the geometric to the pictorial, and their employment was predicated on concerns that were more cultural and political than scientific. To show how these concerns contributed to the dramatic shift in the representation of cities which occurred at the outset of the eighteenth century, the content of the languages employed in the most famous early modern view (1627) and the plan of Naples (1775) is analyzed and the ways in which their respective strategies of representation explicitly sought to accommodate or challenge the political status quo are exposed. |
